


Your Eyes Look Like Coming Home

by wordsbymeganmichael



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Anti-Neal, F/M, Reunited Childhood Sweethearts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-22
Updated: 2021-02-22
Packaged: 2021-03-12 08:48:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,859
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29632107
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wordsbymeganmichael/pseuds/wordsbymeganmichael
Relationships: Captain Hook | Killian Jones/Emma Swan
Comments: 7
Kudos: 55





	Your Eyes Look Like Coming Home

Emma Swan sits at the table of her favorite restaurant, eyes wide on the dessert plate sitting in front of her. It's not what she should be looking at, of course, but it's the only thing she can focus on without her mind spiraling out of control. 

Again. 

She thought they were happy. She thought they had a really great thing going, and didn't want to mess all that up. In her head, it all made sense. Just because she wasn't ready to marry him didn't mean they couldn't still be together, right? 

Apparently not. According to him, if she didn't want to marry him now, she was never going to change her mind and therefore there was no reason for them to be together anymore. 

It made no sense to her. Lots of things about him made no sense to her, but she always thought that was one of the things she liked about him — his excitement over a particular piece of furniture, his love of the opera, his desire to rinse his hair with cold water. But all of those things were… quirks. Things that made him  _ Walsh.  _

It's not like she just dropped this on him, either. They had talked before about the future, about buying a house outside the city and having a family and all of those things, and every time, Emma assured him that, though she's not ready for it now, she will be  _ someday.  _

When he decided that  _ someday  _ meant right now, she wasn't sure. 

So she said no. It shouldn't have been a surprise. She said, just as she had during those other conversations, that she just isn't really ready for that kind of commitment. Yes, she loves him, yes, she wants to be with him, but she just isn't ready for that. 

What was so hard for him to understand about that? 

" _ This doesn't have to be an ultimatum," she told him, staring only at the ring in his hand, refusing to even look in his eyes. She believed what she was saying… right? "This isn't a make-or-break for us."  _

_ "It is for me."  _

_ There was a coldness in his voice that she never heard before, a side of him that he had somehow managed to hide from her for the last three years.  _

_ Why wasn't she upset? _

_ "Really? This is — this is it for you? Either I say I want to marry you, which you already know isn't the truth, or we end everything, right now?"  _

_ He dropped the ring on the table, folding his hands in front of him. Finally, she pulled her focus up to his face, as emotionless as she has ever seen it, his brown eyes dark with what she can only describe as rage. "Yes." _

She said nothing. There's nothing for her to say, really, staring at the words "Marry me" written so beautifully across the plate next to her slice of cheesecake. 

The silence closes around them. She should find something to say, should tell him that she wants him to stay, but her voice is gone. She doesn't even know for sure if the words would come from a place of truth, or a place of fear, simply trying to hold on to the only good thing that has happened to her recently. So much in her life had gone wrong, her parents leaving her and leaving Storybrooke and fucking  _ Neal _ in the years after that. Compared to him, Walsh was a breath of fresh air, a soft summer breeze to Neal's tropical storm, and it was the warmth she clung to more than anything else. 

"Really?" he says, breaking the silence, his voice much louder than it needs to be in the quiet restaurant. Everyone  _ has  _ to know what's going on by now, a fact that Emma tries to ignore as best she can. 

Tries to push down, like every other emotion. 

"You're not going to say anything? Nothing at all." 

She swallows, squeezing her eyes shut for a moment. 

And decides. 

"I have nothing to say," she breathes, feeling a warmth — her own fire, her own power — raging up inside of her. "If you can't respect my wishes and see this from my point of view, then  _ no,  _ I don't want to marry you." 

This is, apparently, all he needs to hear and, with a huff and a fist slammed on the table and a very expensive-looking ring stuffed back into the pocket of his dress coat, he leaves her there, staring down at her cheesecake and trying not to think about how many people just witnessed one of the most embarrassing moments of her life. 

It takes a bit, but the regular din of the restaurant starts to rise up around her, people turning back to their own conversations, their own lives, and leaving her behind. 

Just like everyone else has. 

With a sarcastic grin, she takes her pointer finger and runs it through the chocolate words on the plate, crossing out the words, then sticks her finger in her mouth. Another moment of contemplation, and a shrug, and she picks up her fork and begins to eat the dessert sitting in front of her. 

Walsh probably left the bill with her, too, so she might as well enjoy the dessert she will have to pay for.

So she eats his spumoni, too. 

It's a cool spring night in Boston, and there's just enough chill in the air for her to slide her old leather jacket over her shoulders. It may not be the most appropriate with her black dress, but something about the softness of the red leather always reminded her of peace and of happiness and of home. 

The only home she ever had, really. A home she had found herself thinking about more and more recently, though she could never figure out why. 

Thinking of everything she left behind when she drove off for the last time, all those years ago. As a teenaged girl who had never known a real home before, Storybrooke was as welcoming as anywhere had ever been, and the friendships that she made there were the strongest she had ever known, even if she did only still talk to Ruby with a phone call or a text from Mary Margaret on holidays. 

Nothing in her life had been the same since she left that small town, but it was a change that she had convinced herself was a good thing. 

A change that was necessary, even if not on the best terms. 

God, she wonders if he was as embarrassed as she was tonight, the  _ last  _ person she said she couldn't marry. Did he feel this humiliated when she said she couldn't go to England with him? They had been so happy — possibly the happiest she had ever been, though her life was much easier at eighteen than it was now. 

She can't help herself: as her tired feet take her down the right blocks to her apartment — separate from Walsh as another way to protect herself from getting hurt — she thinks about what her life might have been like if she said yes that first time, if she had followed her heart instead of being overwhelmed by her fear. 

If she had gone to Oxford with him… 

Would they still be there? Happily roaming the streets of England, hand in hand, while she supported his dreams? What would she be doing? Certainly not living out her days as a bail bondsman, luring men into honey traps to get them to pay their debts? 

And, perhaps most importantly, would she be happy? Would she want to marry him, never having experienced the life-shattering heartbreak that came from telling him they couldn't be together? 

Before she even realizes she has walked eight blocks, she's standing in front of the door to her apartment — but something in the shop window next to it catches her eye. 

It catches more than that, once she realizes what she is looking at, and for a moment, she can barely breathe. 

She never thought she would see him again, those bright blue eyes and charming smile. Sure, it's been ten years since she last saw him, since she said goodbye, but she would recognize him anywhere. 

She figures that would be true with any first love, but especially someone as stunning as him, and someone who left as much of an impact on her life as he did. 

For a moment, she tries to convince herself that it isn't him, that it  _ can't  _ be him, because that would be  _ insane.  _ But, more telling than his blue eyes, are the words written in block letters under his picture on the poster: "Up-and-Coming Author Killian Jones, Book Signing April 23" 

_ April 23.  _ That's just a few days away. How long was this poster hanging here? Did she really pass by it all those times without noticing it? She knows that she was spending a lot of nights at Walsh's apartment, trying to appease his desire to live with her. She needed her own space, told him this all the time, but it was just another thing about her that he never tried to understand. That  _ has  _ to be why she is just noticing this for the first time. 

Dorothy, one of the girls that works in the bookstore, sees her staring at the poster and waves through the window, and even with all the turmoil going through Emma's mind, she can't help but smile at her braided pigtails and plaid button-down shirt tied around her waist. Dorothy always did know how to make Emma smile, always offered her a cup of coffee or a donut from the back room when Emma needed to come in to talk to August, her landlord and owner of the bookstore — or when Emma just needed a quiet place to stay for a bit, a book in her hands as she curled up on the couch in the back corner of the store, hiding from the demons in her head that came for her sometimes when she was alone. 

Emma waves back, trying her best to smile, and takes one more look at the poster on the window before climbing the steps to unlock the door. 

His eyes greet her every time she leaves her apartment for the next few days, bright and welcoming and smiling as they have been since she was sixteen, lost and alone with nowhere to go, new to Storybrooke and small-town life. Besides Ruby, he was her first real friend (before he became something more), and she is pulled back into those memories with each glance at the bookstore window. 

On Thursday, the day before his book signing, she dares to walk into the store, deciding to gather as much intel as she can from August and Dorothy without seeming too suspicious. 

They already have books piled on the table in the back of the store and are working on lining the few folding chairs they keep in storage around the table when she comes in, exhausted from a day of chasing skips but needing to know the answers to some of the questions that have been eating away at her. 

She wanders around the shop for a bit, perusing the bookshelves and trying not to give herself away, until she finally winds up in front of the display set up next to the table. His picture on the back cover takes her breath away, even though it is the same one from the poster in the window, and she runs her thumb across his cheek before turning her attention to the summary on the back of the book: 

_ At just nineteen, Nathaniel Rogers has left everything he has ever known to move across the world to his dream school, only for everything he has left behind to crumble around him. Heart broken and alone, he wanders the streets of London mourning the loss of the only family he has ever known, only to be pulled back to his feet by a mysterious older man and his crew of poets.  _

"It's almost based on real life, you know," Dorothy says, pulling her out of her mind before it can spiral again. "Maybe not the band of poets thing, but he's said that everything that happens to the main character in the beginning happened to him when he went to college." 

"You've read this?" 

"Yeah, and it's incredible. The way he weaves together storytelling and poetry and heartache and pain and happiness? I could read it over and over again and still love it as much as the first time." 

_ His writing has always been like that,  _ she almost says, but catches herself at the last second. "Wow," she says instead. "Sounds really good. Can I buy a copy tonight and bring it back tomorrow for the signing?" 

With a smile, Dorothy obliges. 

It's been a very long time since Emma has stayed up all night to read a book, but with Killian's book, Emma just can't help herself. The tale that he weaves, blending the present with heartbreaking flashbacks all mixed with a poetic voice so similar to what Emma remembers, is one that she gets so engulfed in that, before she even realizes it, it's 2 o'clock in the morning and she has less than 50 pages left. 

_ Home _ . That's what reading his book reminds her of, the warm feeling of life in Storybrooke, the welcoming atmosphere of Granny's diner and the comfort of walking the trail around the lake. But there's more to it, too, the obvious growth that his writing has gone through since he was a teenager, honed to an almost unfair perfection during his time as Oxford and his adulthood. 

Since she left him. 

Showing up the next day is both the hardest and easiest decision she has made in a while. She wants to see him, she realizes, pulling her hair up into a high ponytail. She wants to see how he has grown, wants to catch up with him and learn all the things she has missed by staying behind. 

But she’s also  _ terrified _ of both of those things. What if he doesn’t want to see her? 

No. That’s not what she’s afraid of. It’s  _ stupid _ , really, to feel like this, to have butterflies for the first time since… 

She can’t remember the last time she had butterflies. She doesn’t think it was with Walsh, and it certainly wasn’t with Neal. It had to have been with him. Ten years since she’s felt like this, her heart pounding quickly in her chest as she grips her copy of  _ The Great Light Borrowers _ against her, walking slowly down the steps from her apartment. She’s a few minutes late, just as she planned, hoping to show up after he has already started reading to avoid any chance of smalltalk. 

But seeing him there, his hair longer than it ever was when they were kids, his light blue dress shirt under a dark grey vest and unbuttoned enough to reveal a shock of dark hair on his chest, she feels something much more than nervousness. There is a tightness under the butterflies, a turning of her stomach just listening to his voice as he reads from one of the first pages of the book, and she has to lean back against one of the shelves to keep herself upright. 

_ “The details of that night are a haze, even now, years later,”  _ he reads, his voice perfect and lilting and exactly as she imagined it as she read through the same narration the night before.  _ “Certain things come back as clear as day: the sweet smell of the patisserie as I made my way down the street; the hum of the lights and the cars mixed with that patient quiet of the middle of the night, present even in the middle of the city; the feel of each rain drop as they began to fall softly from above. But I cannot recall where I was, even after all these years of searching for that patisserie. I know quite a few people made comments about my appearance as I stumbled down the sidewalk, but I cannot tell you what any of them said, what they looked like or how they looked at me.  _

_ “But the heartbreak that I was feeling, returned back home to London for the first time since I was boy just to learn that everything I left at home was no more, is a feeling that I was unable to run or drive or swim away from, on my feet or in bottles of whatever I could get my hands on.”  _

Emma doesn’t realize he has looked up from the book until she opens her own eyes, having closed them to both experience the words being told as they were meant to be, and to keep herself from running away as fast as she can. But when she opens them and finds him staring directly at her, his mouth half-agape and his bright eyes wide behind his glasses, his gaze is the only anchor that keeps her in the bookstore. 

But she knows he has to keep reading, knows that he is being paid to read for a certain amount of time, so he cannot simply choose to stop where he is and talk to her — or run from her, whichever feeling he is currently overwhelmed by. A flush rises to his cheeks, and Emma realizes he must be feeling one of them — but as quickly as it started, he clears his throat and continues to read. 

_ “To say I was at my lowest is an understatement of the worst kind, but in retrospect, I truly believe that I had to be drowning to that extent in order to move through the grates at the bottom of life to find the men who would pull me back to normalcy.  _

_ “So this, dear readers, is the story of how I got there, and how I got back.”  _

But this time, when he looks up, she is gone. 

— — — 

He’s read the words so many times, in his head and out loud, that he practically has them memorized. But, despite all his practice with public speaking, it’s something completely different when it’s his own words, words that he has stressed and worried and practically  _ bled _ over, he’s learned, so he keeps his eyes down, focusing on the pages in front of him, the feel of them against his fingers and the smell of the newly-printed ink. 

_ “Certain things come back as clear as day: the sweet smell of the patisserie as I made my way down the street; the hum of the lights and the cars mixed with that patient quiet of the middle of the night, present even in the middle of the city; the feel of each rain drop as they began to fall softly from above. _ ”

His greatest struggle with this, he’s learned, is separating himself from the very personal words of his prologue. Because, while veiled in fiction, he  _ does _ remember the night that started all of it, the night he learned his brother never made it home from helping him move across the ocean, and it destroyed him. There was no patisserie, there was no rain, but he was drowning in his own way, drowning in his own grief, just as Nathaniel is at the beginning of his story.

_ “But I cannot recall where I was, even after all these years of searching for that patisserie. I know quite a few people made comments about my appearance as I stumbled down the sidewalk, but I cannot tell you what any of them said, what they looked like or how they looked at me.  _

_ “But the heartbreak that I was feeling, returned back home to London for the first time since I was boy just to learn that everything I left at home was no more, is a feeling that I was unable to run or drive or swim away from, on my feet or in bottles of whatever I could get my hands on.”  _

As he finishes this sentence, he hears the voice of Robin, his agent, in his head: “I understand the nervousness, but you have to look at your crowd sometimes. Take a breath, look up, and continue.” 

So that’s what he does. 

Inhale. 

Look up.

_ Holy fuck.  _

He can’t breathe. Literally, his lungs won’t move, every part of his chest is keeping him from exhaling, completely stuck. Except his already-quickened heart, working overtime through his nervousness, which takes to  _ pounding  _ at the sight of her. 

Emma Swan, as he lives and breathes. Almost definitely not a figment of his imagination, since his mind is already working hard enough to read in front of an audience. 

No, he takes that back. She’s definitely not a figment of his imagination, because she is somehow more beautiful than he has imagined her to be, in all the times he has imagined her in the last ten years. Her few pictures on social media do her no justice, because the angel standing in front of him, gripping a copy of his book against her chest and staring at him, takes his breath away. 

No. No, he can’t lose track of where he is supposed to be. For some reason, this small bookstore wanted to have him read while in Boston for his book tour, and wanted to offer him more money than usual — so he has to follow through with what he has promised them. 

So he clears his throat, tries to calm the pounding of his heart in his chest, and turns back to the words. 

Focusing on them is harder than it has ever been before, though, and her green eyes haunt him in a way somehow different than the way they had before, staring deeper into his soul now that he has seen her for the first time in ten years. She has always been real, has always been a ghost from the past, a mistake he constantly wished he never made. He’s dreamt about being reunited with her, probably even daydreamed about it, but he never imagined it would actually happen. For the first time in a while, he feels hopeful, a warmth in his chest that he vaguely remembers from the nights they used to fall asleep next to each other. 

But when he looks up again, the warmth is torn away, and it takes all his strength not to choke out a sob between the words. 

Because when he looks up again, she is not there. 

He goes through the rest of the reading hoping that maybe she is just out of sight, maybe she just went to the bathroom or to get a refreshment, but when he finishes the excerpt and she still has not reappeared, he realizes that his hope has, once again, dwindled away. 

Does she know how much he regrets leaving her behind? Giving in to her demand for an ultimatum and starting a new chapter of his life without her? As hard as he has tried to move on, he’s always found himself thinking about her, wondering where she is and if she is doing okay. He even went so far as to add her on social media a few years back, hoping it would offer a glimpse into her life now, but she barely posted anything — which really should not have been that much of a surprise, since she had always been so closed off. 

His few phone calls with Dave had proven just a fruitful, offering the barest trace of her, mostly through updates from Ruby. She was no longer in Storybrooke, had left around the same time he had — and, just like him, had never returned. 

But — Boston. She must be in Boston now, because he can’t imagine a scenario where she found out he was here any other way, nonetheless traveled to see him just to disappear. 

He hopes she’s happy. He has so many questions, wants to learn every little thing that has happened since he last saw her, but, more than anything else, he wants her to be happy. If she wanted to talk to him, she would have stuck around — it just makes sense. And since she hasn’t reached out at all over the last ten years, why would that change just because they’re in the same town for the first time since they broke up. 

And since she hasn’t reached out in ten years, it would just be wrong to try to find her.  _ Right?  _ Plus, it’s not like anyone around here even has to know her. He could ask questions to every Bostonian he sees and learn nothing. It would be wrong. It would be an invasion of privacy. It would be absolutely inappropriate. 

Yet, somehow, the question leaves his lips before he can stop it: “There was a woman here earlier, a blonde. Her name is Emma. Do you happen to have any idea where I can find her?” 

But the owner just shakes his head. “No, I’m afraid not.” 

Killian sucks his bottom lip between his teeth, nodding his head. It was a long shot, a totally impossible shot, and he knew that when he asked, but he still can’t help but feel — 

“Wait, you mean Emma Swan?” Killian vaguely recognizes the girl that asks the question, knows that she has been in the bookstore since he got there earlier that day — an employee, he thinks. 

“Yes!” He is maybe a bit too excited. “Why? Do you know her?” 

A beat passes, the girl on the receiving end of a glance from her boss, and Killian can’t help but notice the slump of her shoulders that follows it. 

“Uh, yeah,” she mumbles, turning her eyes to the floor. “She… comes in here a lot. I sold her your book last night.” 

His earlier thoughts rattle through his head again:  _ an invasion of privacy. Absolutely inappropriate.  _ Of course this girl can’t tell him where he can find Emma, there are  _ laws _ against that. 

But maybe, just  _ maybe _ , someone else can. 

He waits until the next day, knowing that Dave lives a domestic life that includes things like  _ small children _ and  _ bedtimes _ , but hopes that the late morning is an appropriate time to call. 

Unsurprisingly, the voice on the other end of the phone is obviously shocked to hear from him. Usually they only talk on holidays, and Dave has  _ always _ been the one to call, so simply seeing his name pop up on his phone must have been a bit of a shock. “Killian? Hello?” 

Only then does he realize how awkward this is. “Uh, hey, Dave.” 

“Is everything okay? You never call me.” 

_ “Ask him how his book tour is going!”  _ Mary Margaret calls in the background, her voice growing ever-louder as she approaches him. 

“Yes, of course, everything is — everything is fine. The tour is going fine, thank you. I was, uh, actually hoping you could help me with something?” 

Dave, of course, agrees, so Killian gives him a small rundown of the situation. Book tour, Boston, Emma. 

“She showed up to your reading?” Mary Margaret’s voice in the background sounds just as surprised by this as he was. 

“You can imagine how surprised I was.” 

At this, Dave laughs. 

“So, how can we help you with this?” Mary Margaret asks. 

Killian clears his throat, nervous even for this. “Do you… happen to know where I can find her? She ran out before I was done, but I would really like to… to see her again.” 

“Do you think she would be okay with that?” Dave mumbles, most definitely asking his wife and not him, but he can’t help but answer. 

“She wouldn’t have shown up if she didn’t want to see me, right?” 

“Killian?” Mary Margaret yells, though absolutely unnecessary since he can hear her just fine. 

“Yes, love?” 

“I’m going to text Emma and make sure she’s okay with that, and then I’ll have Dave text you her address, okay?” 

His only option is to agree. He’s thankful even for the opportunity to talk to her again, and for the work the Nolans have to do to help him here, so of course he agrees, passes on a million thanks, and tells them he has an event to get to — not  _ totally _ a lie, but that event is only lunch with Robin, nothing too important. 

He doesn’t realize how nervous he is until he finds himself pacing across his hotel room, running his hands through his hair and fixing the collar of his unbuttoned shirt. It only takes a few minutes to hear from him, thankfully gifting him an address and a phone number, but he does not sit still for a moment between hanging up with Dave and receiving the message. 

He barely sits still through lunch with Robin, updating him with the newest part of his adventure, starting with her appearing before him last night and ending with the address from David — which he looked up on the way here, only to learn that it is the apartment above the bookstore from yesterday, most likely the reason the owner was unable to help him find her. 

“Did you text her yet? That’s why Dave sent you her number, right?” 

“And what am I supposed to say?  _ ‘I’ve thought of you every moment since I got on the plane to England ten years ago, and seeing you last night made me realize that I’ve never stopped loving you, even if it doesn’t make sense’ _ ?” 

Robin barks out a loud laugh, rolling his eyes when Killian groans. "Yes," he chuckles. "Please, say exactly that." 

"Yeah, no." 

"Well, you have to send her something." 

Killian sets his phone down on the table, then runs his fingers through his hair. “I mean, really,” he says, letting out a soft laugh. “I don’t. Maybe we don’t get another chance.” 

“That’s not what you want, though.” It’s not a question, not even a little bit. Robin may be his agent now, but their friendship goes back further than that, all the way back to Oxford. Killian would probably even call Robin his best friend, if anyone ever cared to ask, though they usually didn’t. Most of his communication with others anymore was through book tours and the  _ very _ sparse date he accepts, though they rarely make it to a second date. He has always known why, in the back of his mind, has known that  _ none of them are her _ , though he doesn’t think he’s ever gone so far as to admit it out loud. 

But if he did, it would have been to Robin. 

“No,” he breathes, tapping his phone to light up the screen. 

“Then  _ text _ her.” A beat passes silently, Killian allowing his screen to go dark again. “What’s the worst that can happen, really?” 

“She can do what she did ten years ago and tell me she doesn’t want to be with me.” 

“Alright, I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt. What if she does do that?”

Killian’s eyes jump to his friend. “Pardon?”

“What if she says that? Then what’s going to happen?” 

“I’ll probably never set foot on this bloody continent again.” 

“Okay. We’ll go back to England. We’ll cancel the rest of your book tour so you can wallow in sadness, is that what you want?” 

Killian sighs. “No,” he mumbles. “That’s not — that’s not what I want.” 

“I’ll tell you what’s going to happen if she rejects you again. We don’t have to be in New York for a few days, so we’ll get terribly, raging, mad at the world drunk. Maybe we’ll go dance naked under the moon in Salem, or dive into the Boston Harbor. You will, undoubtedly, do something terribly stupid. Then the next day, we’ll nurse our headaches, eat greasy diner food, and  _ move on _ , yeah?” 

“I’ve been trying to move on for ten years, Rob. You really think that’s going to happen in one night?” 

“You’ve been convincing yourself for ten years that if you come back to her, show her the person you’ve become, that she’ll take you back. Once she rejects you again, then you won’t be able to convince yourself of that anymore, and you’ll be free. Free to do whatever you want.” 

“Like dance naked with the witches.” 

“Yes.” Robin raises his cup of coffee to his lips, his eyebrows moving in sync. “Exactly like that.” 

It takes him the rest of their lunch to decide what he was going to send her — because of  _ course _ he’s going to text her. There’s a reason she showed up at his reading last night, a reason she showed up in his life again, he’s very sure of that. 

That doesn’t mean his hands aren’t shaking as he writes out his message, or that his heart isn’t pounding as his finger hovers over the send button. He reads over it again, taking yet another deep breath as he tries to slow the pounding of his heart:  _ Hello, Emma, it’s Killian. I’m in the states for a book tour, so I reached out to David on a whim, and he told me that you were in Boston. As it turns out, I am also in Boston, though I think you may have known that. I was wondering if you would like to meet while I’m here, maybe go to dinner?  _

“Really, that’s what you sent?” Robin asks, incredibly unhelpfully, but Killian’s thumb has already pressed the send button. 

Robin is still holding his phone when it goes off, and Killian convinces himself in that moment that it’s something else, it’s Facebook or email, a new Youtube video or a football update from ESPN — but watching Robin’s eyes go wide, the beginnings of a smile on his lips, ensures him otherwise, even before his phone is back in his hand. 

“Looks like you have a date, mate.”

The  _ next day _ . She asks if he wants to meet the  _ next day _ . Which, yes, of course he does, but he certainly hasn’t prepared himself enough for it. He starts the day with a run, trying to work off some of his energy. 

(It doesn’t work.) 

A hot shower. A few hours of work. Lunch. He even tries to sit down and try to read, but his mind is running too hard, too fast, and he cannot focus on the words. He  _ almost  _ takes another shower, but convinces himself otherwise. They decided to meet at a seafood restaurant by the harbor at 5, so he doesn't let himself start to get ready until 3:30, giving himself enough time to walk the few blocks — but he still finds himself in front of the mirror twenty minutes before he wanted to leave, dressed and ready to go, but far from prepared. He's not sure his heart has slowed from it's pounding since… when did it even start? When he sent Emma the text the night before? When David sent him her number? Maybe even when he looked up from the words he wrote to ease the pain left behind by her to see her standing there, watching him. 

That can't be healthy. 

He gulps down a bottle of water, only realizing how thirsty he is when he pulls it from the fridge, runs his comb through his hair once more. Straightening the collar of his unbuttoned grey dress shirt, he takes one last look in the mirror, checks his pockets for everything he needs, and grabs his jacket before practically running out of his hotel room, not giving himself enough time to overthink the decision  _ again  _ and change his mind again. 

He is, of course, half an hour early to their reservation, having walked a little faster than usual, and the hostess offers him a seat at the bar while he waits for their table to be ready. A drink is the very last thing he needs right now, could possibly make him feel even more jittery, so he orders a higher-end whiskey for something to sip in place of his usual rum on the rocks, knowing he could easily down that in a single gulp. 

As he lets the soft burn of the liquid settle into his stomach, he begins to overthink everything once more, though at least now he can't run away. What if she only agreed to this to be polite? What if she just wants to catch up, or — worse, perhaps, what if she's in a relationship, happy and in love with someone who is not him? 

How is this the first time this has crossed his mind? 

Just as he's spiraling into his thoughts once more, she walks through the doorway and into the bar, a soft pink dress hugging her curves under a bright red leather jacket. Her long hair — longer than she ever kept it when she was young — is pulled into a high ponytail, falling in golden curls past her shoulders. But when she smiles at him, quickly crossing the room to join him at the bar, he forgets all of his worries, every anxiety he's felt since he saw her again melting into the comfortable heat of the restaurant. Because she's  _ here _ , and she looks like that, more beautiful than any of his memories or daydreams of her have been. She's here, smiling at him, sitting beside him at the bar, and nothing else in the world matters. 

——— 

Taking a deep breath, she sits down beside him at the bar. "It seems I'm not the only one who showed up early," she quips, then orders a glass of sweet red wine. 

He smiles. "I may have been a little nervous." He takes another small sip of his rum, hoping to hide the blush that rises to his cheeks. 

"You aren't the only one," she says with a chuckle of her own. 

"Oddly, that doesn't make me feel any better." 

"What do we have to be nervous about, anyway?" she asks, then takes a big gulp of her wine before smiling at him — neither of which help calm his still-pounding heart. "It's not like this is our first date." 

He leans back on the barstool, covering his face with his free hand. "Oh, god," he groans. "That was certainly terrible, wasn't it?" 

"I don't know that  _ terrible _ is how I would describe it…" She pauses, looking at him out of the corner of her eye. "Anymore, at least." 

"I think it's worse in hindsight for me, love." 

She didn't think she would be this affected by him. Honestly, she didn't know how she was going to feel, coming back to him after all their time apart. Nervous, she expected. Unsure of what to do. But  _ butterflies _ , at twenty-one, just from being called  _ 'love' _ ? That was certainly unexpected. 

( _ No wonder no one has measured up to him in the last ten years _ , she thinks to herself, trying to cover up her smile with another sip from her wine glass.) 

"I made a right fool of myself that night,  _ and  _ I crashed your car? I thought David was never going to speak to me again." 

She laughs. Out loud. If he couldn't still feel it pounding away in his chest, he would have sworn his heart had fallen to the floor. "Yeah, okay, Dave was beyond pissed. But not as much as when I told him I didn't have insurance for it because I  _ stole  _ it before I left New York City." 

"I've heard recounts of that conversation from both him and you, but I can still only imagine what he's like when he gets that angry." 

"Not to mention Ruth." 

"Oh,  _ Ruth _ ," Killian breathes, falling back in his seat once more. "It's been a lifetime since I've spoken to that wonderful lady. Do you know how she's doing?" 

Emma's shoulders fall, slouching over the bar. She doesn't look up from her glass as she mumbles, "She passed. It couldn't have been more than a few months after you left for Oxford. Definitely within that first year." 

"Fuck me," he mumbles. "I'm so sorry, Emma. How did she — what did — what happened?" 

"Cancer. It was months between the diagnosis and losing her. It happened so quickly." 

"Why did no one tell me?" he asks, not even thinking about the words. 

But at this, she turns to him, full of rage. "Why did no one tell you? Really? You think any of us wanted to go through that? We had already lost Ruth, and you ran halfway around the world to get away from me." 

_ No!,  _ he wants to yell, wants to remind her.  _ I wasn't running from any of you! I asked you to come with me!  _

But — thankfully — he is able to bite back the words. 

"You're right, love, I'm sorry," he says instead. "I can't imagine what you went through." 

"No," she snaps, her eyes cast down on the bar again. "No, you can't." 

He wants to correct her again. Because he  _ does _ know. He knows  _ exactly  _ how it feels to lose the only family you have, and unlike Emma, he went through it alone, by himself in England. Does Emma even know that Liam died? Surely someone would have told David. But this isn't the place to bring it up. 

He lets the silence settle between them, taking another sip from his glass.  _ Great job, Jones _ , the voice in his head scolds him — a voice that has always sounded like Liam.  _ You've already managed to piss her off.  _

Thankfully, the hostess walks over to them, a wide smile across her face. "Jones, party of 2? Your table is ready for you." 

"Thank you," Emma says softly, sliding off the barstool, her glass of wine in her hand. 

The hostess holds up a drink tray in one hand. "Please, let me take those for you." 

This time when Emma turns to him, she is obviously impressed, her eyebrows high on her forehead. "Thank you," she says again, setting her glass on the tray as Killian does the same with his. 

She leads them across the restaurant, back through the entrance and up a small set of steps before seating them at a table beside one of the large windows looking out over the harbor — a request made when Killian placed the reservation, suggested by more than a few happy internet reviewers. 

"Quite a place you picked for us here, Swan," Killian says, pulling out her chair for her to sit down. "I take it you've been here before?" 

"Yeah, Walsh brought me here once or twice, but we always just got a table on the first floor, not one with a view like this." 

He swallows, pushing his heart back down his throat as he sits across from her. "Walsh?" 

Her head snaps up, eyes meeting his and full of surprise. "Yeah, he was my…" She pulls her bottom lip up between her teeth. "We were together for a while, but we… broke up. We didn't agree on a few important things." 

"I'm sorry, Swan. When was that?" 

At this, she smiles, letting out a soft laugh as she takes a small sip of her wine. "Just a few days ago. I was on my way home from that when I saw your picture at the bookstore. Mary Margaret would have called it a sign." 

"You wouldn't?" 

“Nope. Just a mere coincidence. Why? Would you call it a sign?” 

“I would be remiss not to.” 

Emma laughs, a breathy thing that catches Killian’s breath in his throat. If he had any doubts about his feelings for her still being true after all this time apart, this moment, a soft chuckle under her breath as she smiles across the table at him, proves that he has truly never stopped loving her, not for a single moment. 

They’re both thankful for the appearance of their waitress at this moment, a redhead with a wide smile named Ariel, who stops Killian from confessing his love and keeps Emma from making a fool of herself by calling Killian dumb. She shares the specials, a pan-seared Ahi tuna and something about steak and lump crab, but though they are both looking right at her, neither of them are really listening. Emma’s been here before and knows their seafood manicotti is the best thing on the menu — the best thing she’s ever eaten, probably — and Killian could care less about specials or even the regular menu items; he’s just happy to be in the presence of Emma Swan once more. 

“Will your checks be together or separate?” she asks, looking back and forth between them. 

Emma glances at Killian, but answers the question anyway: “Separate.” 

“Together,” he says at the same time, then repeats it when he sees Emma staring at him. “It’s been ten years, Emma, the least you can do is let me pay for your dinner.” 

She rolls her eyes, but smiles as she agrees. 

They spend some time catching up, Emma recounting how she left Storybrooke not long after he did, trying her hand in a few cities, becoming a bailbonds-woman. She even includes Neal in her story, glassing over as much as she can. 

But their salads haven’t even arrived yet when she asks the question he’s been dreading the most: “How’s your brother? You haven’t mentioned him yet.” 

His groan has to be louder than he expected.  _ Liam _ . How does he even tell her? 

“I, uh,” he mutters, coughing as his hand flies to scratch the spot behind his ear that has a penchant for itching when he’s nervous. “There’s no easy way to say this, love, but Liam died almost ten years ago now.” Emma’s hand flies to her mouth, stifling a gasp. “He flew to England with me, stayed for a few weeks with some people he knew, and was on a small flight to meet some of his friends in Germany that failed halfway through and crashed. He didn’t make it.” 

“Oh, Killian,” she whispers, her hand still covering her mouth, but she reaches the other one across the table and places it atop his, squeezing his fingers. “I’m so sorry.” 

“I would have throughout for sure David would have told you,” he says, refusing to meet her eyes, instead watching the slow movement of her thumb on the back of his hand. 

“I must have… I must have left by then, and I didn’t talk to anyone from home for a year or two after that, except Ruby.” 

He nods at this, unsure of how to respond, but the way she referred to Storybrooke as  _ home _ made something in his blood sing. All he wanted when they were younger was to give Emma a home, somewhere she could be safe and comfortable, something she had stopped searching for before she was adopted by Ruth.  _ ‘Just another stop _ ,’ she used to call it, not believing she would find anywhere to accept her for more than a few months, since that had been how the rest of her life went. He only wished he could take her back to those days, if only to tell sixteen-year-old Emma that everything was going to turn out okay. 

“So, wait,” she says, breaking the silence but also breaking their physical connection, pulling her hand back to cross her arms on the table in front of her. “How much of your book is real, then?” 

Killian can’t help but laugh. “The loss and heartbreak was real, obviously. I had just moved to England, back for the first time since I was just a boy, but in a different place as lonelier than I had ever been. I was hurt, and I was drunk, and I  _ did _ meet a group of men in Oxford, wandering down a side-street not far from my flat. But that’s really the end of the fact in the fiction.”

“So they weren’t prolific poets?” she laughs. 

“Poets, sort of. They liked to write drinking songs and liked to read poems and tear them apart, but they were rather terrible at both of those things.” 

Emma laughs again, their conversation momentarily pausing as their waitress drops off their salads. 

Their conversation continues like this, pausing for refills, clearing plates, and — finally — the deliverance of the meal. Emma tries to convince herself that the conversation comes so easily because they have ten years’ of information to work with, but she knows that’s not the truth. There has always been something between them, an easiness unlike anything Emma has experienced with anyone else, and she knows that it’s simply being back with him that makes talking so easy. 

Though it lasts almost two hours, dinner feels like mere moments, and in the blink of an eye, Emma has eaten the last bite of her cheesecake, watched Killian hand his credit card to the waitress, and slid her jacket over her shoulders. A heartbeat more, and they are back in the cool Boston air, the smell of the harbor harsh in comparison to the euphoric smells in the restaurant. Emma pulls her jacket tighter around her. 

“You would think I would be used to the chill by now, especially given that it gets much colder than this,” she says, not sure in which direction to go. “It would help to buy a heavier jacket, but as soon as the snow disappears, I find myself in this one again.” 

“Well, red is certainly your color, Swan,” he says, feeling his face grow to the sameshade as her coat as he realizes this is the first compliment he’s paid her. 

“Thanks,” she laughs. “Maybe one day I’ll even learn that it gets colder once the sun sets, so I shouldn’t always walk everywhere.” 

“You walked here?” he asks, perhaps a bit more excited than necessary. “As did I. And I believe we’re heading in the same direction?” 

The night is quiet, dotted with car horns and engines and the regular hustle-and-bustle in a small city like this — and their conversation continues, Killian sharing more about Nemo and the men he met in England that helped him back on his feet, his schooling, the semester he spent studying in Madrid. Emma listens intently, quipping every few minutes but mostly silent, just as Killian remembers her to be. When asked, she shares more about her time in Boston, her best honeytraps, and she even shares a little more about Walsh when Killian asks, though she brushes any questions about Neal away faster than he can ask. 

Lost in conversation, it takes no time to walk the few blocks between the harbor and Emma’s apartment, and before either of them realize it, they are standing in front of the bookstore, looking at the same picture of Killian that started all of this. 

“Do you… want to come up? Have a cup of tea? I probably have some snacks somewhere,” she asks, the words coming out so fast she almost trips over them. 

_ Yes _ , every bone in his body sings, yet somehow, the words that escape his lips are, “I should get back to my hotel, we have to leave in the morning.” 

Her entire countenance falls, her shoulders slumping forward, eyes turning to the ground. “Oh,” she mutters, digging through her purse to find her keys. “I guess this is… goodbye, then?” 

_ Not this again _ , he thinks, desperately trying to find a way to fix the mistake he just made. “No,” he says, and her head snaps up, her eyes meeting his. “No, I’m a sodding idiot. Of course I want to come up, because I certainly don’t want this to be goodbye. Not again. I’ll even go out on a limb and bare more of my heart to you, Emma, because today has only confirmed what I’ve been trying to bury down for years. I tried to move on, tried to find a new life in England where I didn’t love you with every fiber of my being, but everything dulls in comparison to you.” 

She doesn’t care that her mouth is hanging open. She doesn’t care that her keys are still somewhere in her purse, that the April air is chilling her to the bone. All she cares about is  _ him _ , saying the words she’s wanted to hear for years, the words but  _ better _ , adding a poetry that so perfectly fits the new, updated version of the man she has loved since she was sixteen. 

She fills the space between them, wrapping her hand around the back of his neck while the other fists the collar of his jacket, slamming her lips into his. He is just as she remembered, warm and lovely and wonderful, the closest thing to a  _ home _ that she has ever found, welcoming her back with his hand on her hip and his tongue quickly gliding along hers. 

_ Home _ . 

Her fingers in his hair, his breath on her neck, her name barely a whisper on his lips. 

_ Home _ . 

Everything she has ever wanted. Dreamed about. 

_ Home _ . 


End file.
